Rafiki
Rafiki is the major character of the Disney's 1994 animated feature film The Lion King. Personality Rafiki is extremely sagacious and wise. His way of exploiting his intelligence, however, is highly irregular; he prefers to teach his pupils (such as Simba) by bombarding them with cryptic metaphors, and typically in a way that purposely annoys them. He takes great joy in this, and although unconventional, the methods of his teaching have proven to be effective time and time again. It should be noted that part of the reason Rafiki's teachings are rather eccentric is the fact that Rafiki, himself, is fairly eccentric. He is excitable, energetic in spite of his age, and tends to fall into fits of hysterical laughter when something amuses him. He also tends to speak in third-person when speaking of himself. The Lion King Rafiki's character often serves as the visual narrator of the story of The Lion King. He is shown to be a dear friend to Mufasa. He presents newborn cubs to all the animals gathered at Pride Rock, and draws a stylized lion cub on the walls of his treehouse home to represent Simba's birth. Months later Rafiki draws his paw across the Simba drawing, obscuring it in grief after Mufasa's brother Scar takes over as king and claims that Simba died alongside Mufasa in a wildebeest stampede. Timon & Pumbaa Rafiki appears in a few episodes of the Timon & Pumbaa TV series and also has his own series of episodes called "Rafiki Fables" in the same show. In the episode "Rafiki's Apprentice", Rafiki is shown to have a nephew named Nefu and, at the same time, Rafiki is portrayed as being a sorcerer/shaman and his walking stick is his magic staff, which Nefu messes with and ends up causing trouble (a plot somewhat similar to The Sorcerer's Apprentice). The Lion King II: Simba's Pride Rafiki is more closely involved with the affairs and politics of the prides and is often seen with the lions. When the balance of the Circle of Life is thrown off on account of the rivalry between Simba's pride, and a lioness named Zira and her pride the Outsiders (which consists of Zira's children and several other lionesses, who were banished from The Pride Lands for being loyal to Scar), Mufasa's spirit persuades Rafiki to bring Simba's daughter Kiara and Zira's son Kovu together as a way of uniting the prides. He then asks if Mufasa is crazy and doubts that the plan will work, and is then immediately buffeted by a strong gust of wind from Mufasa's spirit, immediately convincing the mandrill to carry out the deceased king's idea. The Lion King 1½ He is first seen briefly after Timon leaves his meerkat colony in search of a better life away from predators and free of tunnel digging. After explaining this to Rafiki, the mandrill openly realizes Timon seeks "Hakuna Matata", meaning "No worries", and thus introduces the meerkat to the problem-free philosophy. Rafiki then explains that, in order to find Hakuna Matata, one must look beyond what they see, setting Timon's journey in motion. Category:The Lion King characters Category:Characters Category:Mandrills Category:Heroes Category:Males Category:Gray Category:The Lion King Category:Animals Category:Disney characters Category:Disney animated films Category:Movie Characters Category:Characters in Disney parks Category:House of Mouse characters Category:Singing Characters Category:Disney male characters